Bible Strands
Song of Solomon 4:15
You are a garden spring, a well of fresh water flowing down from Lebanon.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The speaker addresses the beloved, declaring her to be a garden spring and a well of fresh water flowing down from Lebanon. This statement follows a list of aromatic spices and immediately precedes an invitation for the winds to awaken the garden's fragrance.
The words — מַעְיַ֣ן (ma'.Yan) means a spring, and חַיִּ֑ים (chai.Yim) means living or fresh. Together with בְּאֵ֖ר (be.'Er), a well, they describe a water source that continuously flows rather than stagnates.
The thread — The living water motif appears in John 4:10 and John 4:14, where Jesus offers water that becomes a fountain within a person, and in John 7:38, which promises streams of living water flowing from within a believer.
Why it lands — The text presents the beloved as a sustained source of vitality rather than a static object. It asks the reader to value continuous, life-giving presence and to respond by remaining within that source.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
A fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, and streams from Lebanon.
Cross-references
- John 4:10 Jesus answered, “If you knew the gift of God and who is asking you for a drink, you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”
- John 4:14 But whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a fount of water springing up to eternal life.”
- John 7:38 Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture has said: ‘Streams of living water will flow from within him.’”
- Jeremiah 2:13 “For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living water, and they have dug their own cisterns—broken cisterns that cannot hold water.
- Psalms 36:8 They feast on the abundance of Your house, and You give them drink from Your river of delights.
- Psalms 46:4 There is a river whose streams delight the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells.
- Ecclesiastes 2:6 I built reservoirs to water my groves of flourishing trees.
- Song of Solomon 4:12 My sister, my bride, you are a garden locked up, a spring enclosed, a fountain sealed.
- Jeremiah 17:13 O LORD, the hope of Israel, all who abandon You will be put to shame. All who turn away will be written in the dust, for they have abandoned the LORD, the fountain of living water.
- Jeremiah 18:13 Therefore this is what the LORD says: “Inquire among the nations: Who has ever heard things like these? Virgin Israel has done a most terrible thing.